Accessible
David Gibson
Date posted: 1 Oct 2006
Book Review
KNOWING THE HOLY SPIRIT THROUGH THE OLD TESTMENT
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Letter from America
First of all, 'de-recognise' all the Christians
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Nov 2006
On the one hand, it’s a small story. It only relates to 50 students or so. Other than a cameo appearance in Love Actually, Wisconsin is not a name brand state.
On the other hand, this is the third in a row. First it was Rutgers University in New Jersey. Then it was Georgetown University. Now the University of Wisconsin has ‘De-recognised’ the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship group. On October 2, IVCF filed suit.
Hopes for Hillsong?
Tim Mitchell
Date posted: 1 Nov 2006
Sydney. Home not just to the Opera House and the Anglican evangelicals but also to Hillsong.
Led by Brian and Bobbie Houston, Hillsong is an Assemblies of God church at the cutting edge of modern worship. A London offshoot hires out the Dominion Theatre in the West End. Their latest conference was held in September in London’s Docklands. I went along to the Excel Centre one Friday to find out more.
Evangelical student witness
Edward Dutton
Date posted: 1 Sep 2006
Christians go to university with many of the same aims as everybody else. They want to spread their wings, find out who they are . . . perhaps even get a degree.
But there is one aim which Christian students do not share with their non-Christian counterparts. Many will spend much of their time at university being part of a student-run Christian community and trying to persuade non-Christians to join with all kinds of outreach activities.
The Mosque
Every mosque attempts to be modelled on the first mosque built and directed by Muhammad in Medina.
The functions of a mosque cannot be understood without considering the first mosque and its role and rule in the first Muslim community.
The Third Degree
Students, staff and supporters
Pod Bhogal
Date posted: 1 Sep 2006
It has been said that the Christian Union (CU) is the only university club or society that exists primarily for non-members. CUs are mission teams with a clear and focused agenda — to live for Jesus and speak for Jesus on campus. Their main priority is to see students come to a living faith in Jesus Christ.
Although CUs are led by students, Christian Union Staff Workers (CUSWs) have a vital role in keeping our university CUs healthy, vibrant, outward-looking and mission-focused.
4 loads of trouble!
As I now think of my life since 1948, I realise that it has followed a clear pattern.
Reading John Benton’s The Big Picture for Small Churches prompted some reflections. It seems that the Lord’s purpose for me was to be, what the business world would call, a ‘trouble shooter’. I should have been prepared for this because every morning at breakfast at Bible Institute I read: ‘Thinkest thou great things for thyself, think them not!’ It is only now, as I look back, that I understand.
'Anything, anywhere'
Simon Guillebaud is a young man with a mission in one of the most dangerous parts of Africa.
EN: Could you tell us something about your background, (so the readers find out who you are and where you are coming from), your family and how you came to Christ?
Anglicans on the brink
Chris Sugden
Date posted: 1 Aug 2006
Post the General Convention of Anglicanism in the USA, Chris Sugden sees power struggles and reversion to tribal religion.
The General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC, formerly known as ECUSA), which met recently, did not meet the requirements of the Windsor Report to place a moratorium on blessing same-sex unions or electing and consecrating bishops in same-sex relationships.
Leon Morris, 1914-2006
Leon Lamb Morris, who died on July 24, was perhaps Australia’s most prolific biblical and theological author. He wrote over 50 books of theology and biblical commentary which have sold nearly two million copies worldwide and been translated into many languages.
This is an astonishing output for an Australian writing technical or academic books. He was well known throughout the Christian world as a careful, conservative biblical scholar. Extraordinarily, Morris received no formal theological education, apart from two years of supervision for his doctorate in Cambridge. He was a self-taught theologian who brought his rigorous and disciplined training in scientific enquiry to his study of the Bible and theology.
Imagine (DVD)
Peter Hitchcock
Date posted: 1 Jul 2006
None Review
‘How can we reach the UK? The new Imagine DVD is an exciting, innovative resource from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, for Christians who want to address the challenge of living well as fruitful, missionary disciples in today’s rapidly changing culture.’
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Worship Wars
Tim Keller
Date posted: 1 Aug 2006
One of the basic features of church life in the US today is the proliferation of worship and music forms.
This, in turn, has caused many severe conflicts both within individual congregations and whole denominations.
Everyone in the world... in the Word
Alicia Felce
Date posted: 1 Aug 2006
Recently I went to my normal weekly church Bible study meeting (we are studying Romans) and had an enjoyable time of fellowship and study.
The next day I was due to sit in on a Bible study run by Community Bible Study International, and I have to admit to wondering what it would offer that would be distinct from my normal group. Of course, the fundamentals were similar — such as prayer and a focus on studying the Bible to understand it and apply it to one’s own life. There were however, differences about this ministry, and I found myself firmly convinced of the high value it has as a way of reaching people and strengthening their faith by grounding them ever more in the Bible.
Letter from America
God's glory and national pride
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jun 2006
It is an interesting experience having lived for so long as a foreigner. Before coming to America, I lived for a year in the former Soviet Union, and before that for a year in Canada, but by and large most of my life was spent in England (a good ten years of it in Cambridge).
Having now lived for seven or so years in America, it’s becoming increasingly true that I feel the sense of being without home that, for the Christian, underlines the spiritual reality of this world not being our home but that we are ‘just a-passing through’.
Called to the classroom?
Steve King
Date posted: 1 Jun 2006
More and more the 21st-century church is striving to reach into the local community. Scan the job pages in the Christian press and you will find advertisements for youth workers and community workers abounding. Look carefully at the job descriptions and you will uncover a real desire among Christians to get out to where people are on a day-to-day basis: shopping centres, hospitals, schools, youth centres, sports clubs…
Pastoral workers and lay people alike are being encouraged to join the visiting teams of local hospitals and hospices, to set up after school clubs, to get involved in crèches in large shopping centres. This is all about the local church reaching out.
Nigel Lee: loving the lost, passionate for Christ, 1946-2006
Marcus Honeysett
Date posted: 1 May 2006
When Nigel Lee first discovered he had life-threatening cancer he said to a friend ‘this is when people get to see if I really believe all I’ve been preaching about all these years.’
We have. He did. And now he is with the Lord in the glory of eternity and the famous Lee smile is broader than ever.
John Clayton Doggett, 1917-2006
Clifford Pond
Date posted: 1 Jul 2006
We are rightly warned of worldly ambition that blights spiritual growth. But when one of God’s children reaches a high place in society and at the same time walks humbly with the Lord, the angels learn something more, to their amazement, of the power of God’s grace.
This is the best explanation of the life of John Doggett, who died at the age of 89 on Sunday May 7. No surprise then that the funeral service at St. Peter’s Church, Ugley, Essex, on May 15 ended with ‘Amazing grace! How sweet the sound’.
Music
Music student follow-up
Richard Simpkin
Date posted: 1 Jul 2006
I’m very pleased to announce the arrival of Oliver George Simpkin on May 27. 8 lbs. and rising. Why give The Times all my money when I can announce his birth for free in Evangelicals Now?! I’d also like to announce that Oliver has already been given his first tambourine. Philly and I are hoping that it will be his last. No kazoos either, please.
At the start of the academic year, I asked for prayer for students at the various music colleges. This is a mission field in which we’ve seen three or four new births this year. We’re full of praise because Jesus has proved himself powerful to save young men and women as they’ve heard and believed the gospel. With all the pressures they face, we have had to rely on the power of the Word of God to be brought home to their hearts by the Holy Spirit. We’ve been humbled by our own weaknesses in proclaiming that gospel, but Jesus has shown his strength through our weaknesses time after time. He is faithful to his promises to save.